Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8 GB Review

Name: Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8 GB
Brand: Sapphire

W1zzard

on Jan 22nd, 2016,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: Sapphire

(67 Comments) »

Introduction

AMD's approach to new generations of graphics processors has been different for the past two generations. The Radeon R9 200 series initially saw the introduction of just one silicon codenamed "Hawaii" which drove the company's previous flagship R9 290 series, while the rest of the lineup saw a cascading re-badging from the previous generation. AMD's previous generation flagship, the HD 7900 series, went on to become the performance-segment R9 280 series, and so on, and the performance-segment "Tonga" silicon was added afterward. The story is predictable even today.

With this generation, there is essentially one new silicon, the HBM-equipped "Fiji" that will eventually drive up to five products from AMD. The previous-generation flagship silicon "Hawaii" now drives AMD's performance-segment products, the Radeon R9 390X and R9 390 Non-X.

The Radeon R9 390 is based on the "Hawaii" silicon (now referred to as "Grenada" without any silicon changes) and features the same core-configuration as the R9 290. The standard memory amount has been doubled to 8 GB across the board and clock speeds are increased from 950 MHz to 1000 MHz on the core and from 5.00 Gbps to 6.00 Gbps on the memory.

The Sapphire R9 390 Nitro comes with a GPU overclock of 40 MHz out of the box, while memory has remained at the AMD default of 1500 MHz. With a price of $340, the card is more expensive than other R9 390s from other manufacturers, sitting at a price point that competes with many high-end GTX 970 cards.

Radeon R9 390 Market Segment Analysis
	Radeon R9 280X	Radeon R9 380X	GeForce GTX 780	Radeon R9 290	Radeon R9 390	Sapphire R9 390 Nitro	GeForce GTX 970	Radeon R9 290X	Radeon R9 390X	GeForce GTX 780 Ti	GeForce GTX 980
Shader Units	2048	2048	2304	2560	2560	2560	1664	2816	2816	2880	2048
ROPs	32	32	48	64	64	64	56	64	64	48	64
Graphics Processor	Tahiti	Tonga	GK110	Hawaii	Hawaii	Hawaii	GM204	Hawaii	Hawaii	GK110	GM204
Transistors	4310M	unknown	7100M	6200M	6200M	6200M	5200M	6200M	6200M	7100M	5200M
Memory Size	2 GB	4 GB	3 GB	4 GB	8 GB	8 GB	4 GB	4 GB	8 GB	3 GB	4 GB
Memory Bus Width	384 bit	256 bit	384 bit	512 bit	512 bit	512 bit	256 bit	512 bit	512 bit	384 bit	256 bit
Core Clock	1000 MHz	970 MHz	863 MHz+	947 MHz	1000 MHz	1040 MHz	1051 MHz+	1000 MHz	1050 MHz	876 MHz+	1126 MHz+
Memory Clock	1500 MHz	1425 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz	1500 MHz	1500 MHz	1750 MHz	1250 MHz	1500 MHz	1750 MHz	1750 MHz
Price	$190	$225	$290	$240	$290	$340	$300	$340	$390	$390	$480

Packaging

You will receive:

Graphics card + driver CD
Documentation
HDMI cable

The Card

Sapphire's Nitro cooler design looks very clean and stylish, with black matte as its primary color and gray and silver highlights. You will find a nice metal backplate on the back. Dimensions of the card are 30.5 cm x 12.5 cm.

Installation requires two slots in your system. The cooler does extend a few millimeters beyond the slot cover, which won't pose a problem in any configuration I can think of.

Display connectivity options include one DVI port, a HDMI port, and three DisplayPorts.

The GPU also includes an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support.